Eddie Jack Jordan Jr. (born October 6,1952) is an American attorney who served as the district attorney for Orleans Parish,Louisiana,from 2003 until his resignation in 2007. A member of the Democratic Party,Jordan was the first African American to have held the elected position. He announced his resignation on October 30,2007,when a court rendered a large judgment against his office on behalf of white employees that the D.A. had earlier dismissed on account of their race.[1]
In 1984 Jordan returned to New Orleans to serve as assistant U.S. attorney under then-U.S. Attorney John Volz,a Republican appointed by U.S. President Ronald W. Reagan.
In 2001,Jordan retired as U.S. attorney to enter private practice.
On November 5,2002,Jordan was elected district attorney to succeed the retiring Harry Connick Sr. (father of singer Harry Connick Jr.). Jordan defeated fellow Democrat Dale Atkins,62,155 votes (52 percent) to 57,977 (48 percent). In the October 5 primary,six Democrats and one Republican had filed for the office. The combined Democratic candidates polled 98 percent of the primary vote in the historically Democratic city and parish.[5] Jordan took office in 2003.
A jury determined that Jordan violated employment discrimination laws when,after having taken office,he ordered the wholesale firing of white employees and replaced almost all of them with black workers.
New Orleans,which since Hurricane Katrina has balanced its budget by securing federal loans,will have to determine a way to pay Jordan's legal tab or risk watching the prosecutors' office shut down for financial reasons. MayorC. Ray Nagin said that the city cannot pay the judgment rendered to the former white employees. [6]
On March 30,2005,Jordan was found liable for racial discrimination by a federal jury for the mass firing of forty-three white employees immediately after he took office. These employees were replaced almost entirely by African Americans. As a result of Jordan being found liable while acting in his "capacity as a public official",the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office was required to pay $2.4million to the plaintiffs. Jordan lost an appeal of the case.
On December 28,2006,a grand jury indicted seven New Orleans Police Department officers on first-degree murder charges for the death of two men on the Danzinger Bridge in the turmoil after Hurricane Katrina[7] (see NOPD for more information). While he was celebrated for his supervision of the Edwards trial,Jordan has not garnered similar praise for his performance as district attorney. Under Jordan's reign,the murder and attempted murder conviction rate was only 12 percent in 2003 and 2004,compared to the 80 percent national average. His office also had an overall prosecution rate of only 7 percent[8]
Protesters calling for Jordan's resignation,July 2007
Jordan has also faced widespread criticism for releasing suspects in high-profile murder cases. In July 2007,Jordan released Michael Anderson,a suspect in the murders of five teens. Jordan said that his office was unable to find a key witness in the case;the NOPD subsequently held a press conference a short time later,at which police officials presented the witness.
As of mid-2007,many in New Orleans had voiced complaints about Jordan regarding the low conviction rates of murderers at a time of rising violent crime. On July 12,2007,City Council member Shelley Midura called for Jordan's resignation.[9][10]
Eddie Jordan has been a close political ally of embattled New Orleans Congressman William Jefferson,a fellow Democrat who was defeated in 2008.[11]
As the pressure built against him,Jordan resigned as District Attorney. He was succeeded on an acting basis by longtime prosecutor Keva Landrum-Johnson.[12]
Richard Hugh Baker is an American politician and lobbyist. He served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1987 to 2008, representing the 6th District of Louisiana as a Republican.
David Conner Treen Sr. was an American politician and attorney from Louisiana. A member of the Republican Party, Treen served as U.S. Representative for Louisiana's 3rd congressional district from 1973 to 1980 and the 51st governor of Louisiana from 1980 to 1984. Treen was the first Republican elected to either office since Reconstruction.
Ernest Nathan "Dutch" Morial, was an American politician and a leading civil rights advocate. He was the first black mayor of New Orleans, serving from 1978 to 1986. He was the father of Marc Morial, who served as Mayor of New Orleans from 1994 to 2002.
Antoinette Renee Frank is a former officer of the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) who, on March 4, 1995, committed a violent armed robbery at a restaurant which resulted in the killing of two members of the Vietnamese-American family who ran the establishment, and fellow NOPD officer Ronald A. Williams II. She was aided by her probable lover, drug dealer Rogers Lacaze. Frank has been incarcerated since 1995 at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women in St. Gabriel, Louisiana, the only woman on the state's death row.
Charles William Boustany Jr. is an American politician, physician, and former congressman from Lafayette, Louisiana, who served as the U.S. representative from Louisiana's 3rd congressional district from 2005 to 2017. He is a member of the Republican Party.
Joseph Harry Fowler Connick Sr. was an American attorney who served as the district attorney of Orleans Parish, Louisiana, from 1973 to 2003. His son, Harry Connick Jr., is an American musician and actor.
The first round of the Louisiana House election of 2006 were held on Tuesday, November 7, 2006. The terms of all seven Representatives to the United States House of Representatives will expire on January 3, 2007, and will be put up for contest. The winning candidates will serve a two-year term from January 3, 2007, to January 3, 2009. If necessary, a runoff round will be held on December 9, 2006.
Charles Carmen Foti Jr. is a lawyer in New Orleans and a politician who served a single term from 2004 to 2008 as the Democratic Attorney General of the U.S. state of Louisiana, United States. Prior to becoming attorney general, Foti had been repeatedly reelected and served for thirty years as Orleans Parish criminal sheriff.
Shareef Cousin is an African-American man from New Orleans who was convicted of the first-degree murder of Michael Gerardi in 1996 and sentenced to death as a juvenile in Louisiana. At age 17, he became the youngest condemned convict to be put on death row in Louisiana, and one of the youngest in the United States.
The New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) has primary responsibility for law enforcement in New Orleans, Louisiana. The department's jurisdiction covers all of Orleans Parish, while the city is divided into eight police districts.
John Bel Edwards is an American politician and attorney who served as the 56th governor of Louisiana from 2016 to 2024. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the Democratic leader of the Louisiana House of Representatives from 2012 to 2015.
On the morning of September 4, 2005, six days after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, members of the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD), ostensibly responding to a call from an officer under fire, shot and killed two civilians at the Danziger Bridge: 17-year-old James Brissette and 40-year-old Ronald Madison. Four other civilians were wounded. All the victims were African-American. None were armed or had committed any crime. Madison, a mentally disabled man, was shot in the back. The shootings caused public anger and further eroded the community's trust in the NOPD and the federal response to Hurricane Katrina overall.
Jeffrey Martin Landry is an American politician and attorney who has served since 2024 as the 57th governor of Louisiana. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 45th attorney general of Louisiana from 2016 to 2024 and as the U.S. representative for Louisiana's 3rd congressional district from 2011 to 2013.
John Patrick Connick, is an American attorney from Marrero, Louisiana. A Republican, Connick has represented the 8th district in the Louisiana State Senate since 2020. He previously represented the 84th district in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 2008 until 2020.
Alicia Jeannette Theriot Knoll is a former member of the Louisiana Supreme Court.
Corey Miller, better known by his stage name C-Murder, is an American rapper. He initially gained fame in the mid-1990s as a part of his brother Master P's label No Limit Records, primarily as a member of the label's supergroup, TRU. Miller went on to release several solo albums of his own through the label, including 1998's platinum Life or Death. C-Murder has released nine albums altogether on six different labels, No Limit Records, TRU Records, Koch Records, Asylum Records, RBC Records, and Venti Uno.
Edmond Dwayne Jordan is an American attorney and politician. He is a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for District 29. On May 14, 2016, he won a special election runoff to succeed fellow Democrat Ronnie Edwards.
Jason Rogers Williams is an American politician and attorney who is the Orleans Parish district attorney; he assumed office in 2021. From 2014 to 2021, Williams served as the Second Division Councilmember-at-large on the New Orleans City Council. He is a member of the Democratic Party, and was elected district attorney on a progressive platform.
The 2023 Louisiana gubernatorial election was held on October 14, 2023 to elect the governor of Louisiana. Incumbent Governor John Bel Edwards was term-limited and could not seek re-election to a third consecutive term in office. This race was one of two Democratic-held governorships up for election in 2023 in a state that voted for Donald Trump in 2020.
Susan Hutson is an American lawyer who has been the sheriff of New Orleans, Louisiana, since May 2, 2022. A Democrat, Hutson is the first woman to hold the office. Before becoming Sheriff, she worked in criminal justice reform and police oversight.
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